A youtube on the History Channel's new computer image from the Shroud of Turin can be viewed here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6X-v53WYwYII have always thought the Shroud images were a dead ringer of the Pantokrator, gold coins from Justinian's reign, etc. (see below), but wow, this new image really looks like Christ Pantokrator to me. What do you guys think?

ICONOGRAPHIC IMAGES OF JESUSPantocrator or Pantokrator (Παντοκράτωρ) is the title used by the LXX to translate the Hebrew title El Shaddai ( אל שדי‎); Christians ascribed the title to Jesus.

The most common translation of Pantocrator is "Almighty" or "All-powerful” Pan, "all" + κρατος, “strength”; omnipotent; it may also be understood as denoting Ruler/Sustainer (κρατεω "to sustain”).

In the NT παντοκράτορος is used once by Paul (2 Cor 6:18, of the Father) and 9X in the book of Revelation, also of the Father (παντοκράτορος or παντοκράτωρ). Rev 21:22 says of the New Jerusalem, “I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God, the Almighty, and the Lamb, are its temple.” The Father and the Son are its temple –Gk. singular!

What did Christ look like? During the sixth century a variety of images of Jesus were said to be derived from an image "not made with hands"/αχειροποίητα; cf. Mk 14.58; 2 Cor 5:1). Comparing the images below, notice how the photo of the Shroud of Turin, the image of Christ from a gold coin during the reign of Justinian II (dating between AD 692 and 695), the Pantokrator icons from Hagia Sophia in Constantinople (built under the personal supervision of Emperor Justinian I), and the monastery at traditional Mt. Sinai etc. all look similar.

Ian Wilson suggested the theory that the object venerated as the Mandylion from at least the sixth century was in fact the Shroud of Turin, folded so that only the face was visible and enclosed in a frame (Wilson, Ian, The Turin Shroud: The Burial Cloth of Jesus Christ?). A tenth century codex, Codex Vossianus Latinus Q 69 refers to an eighth-century description of an imprint of Christ's entire body left on a canvas kept in a church in Edessa: "King Abgar received a cloth on which one can see not only a face but the whole body" (in Latin: [non tantum] faciei figuram sed totius corporis figuram cernere poteris). Subsequent studies attempting to date the Shroud still remain highly controversial and subject to divergent interpretations.

"For, by its immensity, the divine substance surpasses every form that our intellect reaches. Thus we are unable to apprehend it by knowing what it is. Yet we are able to have some knowledge of it by knowing what it is not." - St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, I, 14.

I always thought the shroud was an invention of the Middle Ages. Fortunately, our faith is not based on a piece of cloth.

Good point. It's nice to think that the Shroud of Turin can bolster our faith in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, but if we don't believe the witness of the Church, I don't think the Shroud is going to help.

I always thought the shroud was an invention of the Middle Ages. Fortunately, our faith is not based on a piece of cloth.

Good point. It's nice to think that the Shroud of Turin can bolster our faith in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, but if we don't believe the witness of the Church, I don't think the Shroud is going to help.

C14 is reliable enough over the range where it is calibrated by dendrochronology etc., however as it turned out the dating was again called into question after one of the original scientists who did the dating demonstrated in a peer reviewed publication that the Shroud portion which was used as a sample had been rewoven in the Middle Ages http://www.shroud.com/late05.htm#rogersc14; http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tca.2004.09.029

The possible relationship to iconography and the Mandylion is intriguing once again considering the early literary descriptions and the re-opening of the issue of dating. As a "verificationalist apologetic" it will likely always remain inconclusive. I don't claim to know it to be the authentic burial cloth of Jesus, but the final chapter in the scientific analysis of the Shroud has yet to be written. http://www.shroud.com/

I haven't done primary research on this so I can't fully vouch for it, but there is an interesting attempt at possible history/historiography of the Shroud here www.shroud.com/pdfs/sorensen2.pdf

As to Peter's and Gamliel's remarks to the effect that our faith does not rest on a piece of cloth I fully agree. Whatever scientific assessment of the Shroud ultimately concludes at a bare minimum we can still confidently affirm this.

I always thought the shroud was an invention of the Middle Ages. Fortunately, our faith is not based on a piece of cloth.

Good point. It's nice to think that the Shroud of Turin can bolster our faith in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, but if we don't believe the witness of the Church, I don't think the Shroud is going to help.

Then why do you have all these relics of the saints? Like bones and stuff?

Similarity to the Pantokrator icons aside, I can't help but wonder if southern Italian rather than middle eastern skin tone was interpolated by the person (southern Italian?) doing the computer reconstruction rather than being a quality suggested by the image itself.

I always thought the shroud was an invention of the Middle Ages. Fortunately, our faith is not based on a piece of cloth.

Good point. It's nice to think that the Shroud of Turin can bolster our faith in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, but if we don't believe the witness of the Church, I don't think the Shroud is going to help.

Then why do you have all these relics of the saints? Like bones and stuff?

We don't believe in the resurrection of the dead because of what we believe about relics of the saints. We believe what we believe about relics of the saints because of our belief in the resurrection of the dead. If Jesus had remained dead, we would have no saints, hence no wonder-working relics.

This is what convinces me: 1) it's a photographic negative image, and 2) it is functionally a topographic image, which one of the posted images above demonstrates. Neither of these are found, in the form of art or otherwise, until the modern day, because both depend on modern technology. It's highly unlikely some enterprising artist could have possibly made this, whether in the Middle Ages or the First Century.

Not that my faith depends on it, but I do believe it's the real deal. Very cool images, I will have to watch for this show to air again.

I always thought the shroud was an invention of the Middle Ages. Fortunately, our faith is not based on a piece of cloth.

Good point. It's nice to think that the Shroud of Turin can bolster our faith in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, but if we don't believe the witness of the Church, I don't think the Shroud is going to help.

Then why do you have all these relics of the saints? Like bones and stuff?

Are relics used to bolster a wavering faith, or for some other purpose... oh, well then...

Interesting. I saw this a couple years back. It's not too new. But anyhow, I was surprised by how remarkably similar the face looks to some of our Icons of Christ. For something that's like almost 2,000 years old, that looks pretty similar.

Logged

Until I see the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come, I will not believe.